


Exceptionally Unimportant

by Glitteringworlds



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 19:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11927649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitteringworlds/pseuds/Glitteringworlds
Summary: Postgame Faye/Celica, Faye finally finds out that Celica is the Zofian Princess and finds it hard to adjust to the news.





	Exceptionally Unimportant

It’s only after Faye catches a few surprised looks from the others at the table, and realizes she isn’t the only person who has been left in the dark, that she remembers to breathe again.

Alm and Celica are still talking about plans to return to the Zofian Capital. He’s asking Celica her opinion on reunification, as the Zofian princess. And she’s just nodding along, cutting in with comments about the needs of the country, tracing out plans on the map spread between them, marking the towns and cities most in need.

A princess. A queen, really, and if Alm is being talked of as king, then wouldn’t that mean Celica will have to lead as well? To lead a whole country. 

To lead  _ Faye’s _ country.

All of the times she’d accidentally tripped Celica, or insulted her, or spilled something on her, she’d been doing that to her future queen. Alm’s lineage had been hard enough to take in, but at least it had been a surprise to everyone. A surprise even to Alm.

But Celica had known the whole time. And Alm had figured it out; maybe more of them had, too. Faye supposes that she just hadn’t been worth telling.

Someone else is talking now, Tobin, she thinks, and most eyes at the table have shifted to him. But when Faye looks up, Celica is staring at her, concerned, the barest hint of a crease between her eyebrows.

Faye stands, pushing out her chair with a loud clatter, and tries not to notice the room fall silent behind her as she hurries out the door. She’s trying not to look at her feet, her clothes, her hands. The dirt under her fingernails, the rough calluses, the scrapes on her elbows. It’s stupid, they’ve all just won a war, and she knows even the the likes of Clive and Mathilda are a little rough around the edges, but never in her life has Faye felt so plain.

Oh, she’s always known it, by the way Alm looked at her, or didn’t look at her, by the way Gray and Tobin gossiped about the beauty of noble women, by the fraying seams of her dresses, the ones she had learned to mend herself by the time she was 10. But now, standing in a cold, empty hallway in a castle that belongs to her best friend, in a country that is not her own, now, Faye feels like she truly understands what it means to be plain. Boring. Exceptionally unimportant.

A hand on her shoulder startled Faye out of her thoughts, and she hiccups as her sobs are unexpectedly cut short. 

“Faye? Are you alright?”

She doesn’t turn. It’s Celica’s voice, because of course it is.

Celica’s hand doesn’t move as she comes around to face Faye. “What happened?”

Faye just sniffles. There’s no use in trying to pretend to be okay. If it were Alm, she might try to lie. But something about Celica cuts her open, has always cut her open. “I was just… surprised to hear that. About you being a princess and all.”

“Oh.” Celica drops her hand. “I’m so sorry Faye. I guess I assumed that since Alm knew, the rest of you… it was selfish of me. I… I am not overly fond of telling people, to tell you the truth.”

“You aren’t?”

“Well, for a long time, it was important that I didn’t. People wanted to hurt me, and might hurt my friends too, if I was found out. But even now, with the Duma faithful gone and the Rigelian army defeated… it still doesn’t really feel like me.”

Faye doesn’t look up, but watches Celica through the fringe of her bangs as she continues. “To tell you the truth, the only reason I stepped up to the role in the first place is because I wanted to help people, not because I really wanted to lead. And now it’s ‘Princess Anthiese’ this and ‘Princess Anthiese’ that.”

Sniffling, Faye giggles a bit. “It’s kind of a weird name.”

Her eyes go wide even as she is speaking, and she clamps a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

Celica laughs. It’s the same sort of laugh Faye remembers from when they were kids, whenever Faye would say too much and accidentally insult Mycen, or Alm, or one of the village adults. “It is sort of weird, isn’t it? I’m certainly not used to hearing it.” 

With a hesitant smile, she raises her hand to Faye’s face, brushing her thumb across half-frozen tears. “I certainly hope you don’t start using it, Faye.”

When Faye doesn’t respond, Celica continues, “I hope you know, I consider my time in Ram Village to be as much part of who I am as my life in the castle. More, really. I may have learned a bit about how to wear my hair, when I was a princess, or how to properly address a visiting noble, but I learned how to work, and how to have friends, how to grow plants and milk cows and mend clothes, from Ram. From you.”

“Well,” Faye says, reaching up briefly touch Celica’s hand, “you never were very good at mending, so I guess you didn’t spend as much time there as you should have.”

“I most certainly didn’t. So I suppose I will just have to find time to visit. If you’ll have me.”

Faye doesn’t have the words, just then, to say yes, of course, always. To say please, a thousand times over, because you are brilliant and beautiful and Ram was always better for having had you, even for a few short years, because I never forgot how it looked when you smiled. Because I want more than anything for you to be Celica, my Celica, even if you still have to be queen, sometimes.

The thoughts are too big to get out, so she just smiles crookedly, and nods. For now, it will have to be enough.


End file.
